You might be thinking, what's the big deal? Well, the big deal is that scientists took a small chunk of "empty sky", left the shutter open on hubble for about 23 days, & the above picture is what came back. Just about everything in it is a galaxy (over 5500 of them!), with hundreds of millions of stars, from about 13 billion years ago (or, about 500K years after the big bang). How big was that chunk of"empty sky"?

.

That big.

Kinda makes you think about our place in the grand scheme of things, doesn't it? Also, it makes me really excited about the James Webb telescope. That one might be able to go as far back as the big bang...

"The Rich are there to take all of the money & pay none of the taxes, the middle class is there to do all the work and pay all the taxes, and the poor are there to scare the crap out of the middle class." -George Carlin

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

I must have read that passage a hundred times already and I still smile every time I read it.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

There's a video on youtube of this. Makes me grin every time I see it.

we all know liberals are well adjusted american citizens who only want what's best for society. While conservatives are evil money grubbing scum who only want to sh*t on the little man and rob the world of its resources.

"The Rich are there to take all of the money & pay none of the taxes, the middle class is there to do all the work and pay all the taxes, and the poor are there to scare the crap out of the middle class." -George Carlin

This topic got me clicking around the NASA website. It's a real shame there are so many abandoned pages and downed links. Space exploration and astronomy are something that can bring the world together and help us understand ourselves.

____________________________

lolgaxe wrote:

When it comes to sitting around not doing anything for long periods of time, only being active for short windows, and marginal changes and sidegrades I'd say FFXI players were the perfect choice for politicians.

To which part, Slappy? That Republicans are anti-science? They are, unequivocally. It's idiotic to argue otherwise. To the part about gutting NASA? They did. Democrats too, to be sure. Probably because NASA was and is a poorly run waste machine that returns occasional home runs, but overall average results at a massive cost. Government does a lot of things well, including science, but PR based human spaceflight doesn't seem to be one of them.

____________________________

Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

#24gbaji,
Posted:Oct 01 2012 at 6:04 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Huh. Which is a good explanation for why the GOP might cut funding for NASA, but doesn't at all explain how the Dems with their "spend for the sake of spending" economic policy would do so. Which makes one wonder why the post I commented on referenced Republicans but not Democrats. Seems like they're the ones with no real policy reason to make such cuts. Perhaps they've got religious reasons for doing so then. I mean, if we're just going to toss out wild speculation here.

I had never really attributed the downsizing of the space program to the republicans. Neither party has really championed space exploration in the last couple decades.

Except for Bush, who actively championed it and pushed to make more missions involving Mars a priority in our space program. And McCain, who actually included working towards a manned mission to Mars in his campaign. Call it fluff or empty promises if you want, but what has Obama promised much less delivered in this area?

The Democrats have been many times worse in terms of NASA funding that the Republicans. I can only assume the need for liberals who otherwise like the space program to continually suggest that both parties are equally to blame for NASA cuts is because they don't want to acknowledge that their own party is really the biggest culprit. The GOP starts with a small government mentality. They often make a point of making an exception with regard to spending on space. It's usually the Democrats who target NASA for cuts whenever there are budget negotiations on the table. The GOP is often forced to accept cuts to NASA in order to get any cuts at all. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the GOP is somehow anti space exploration and the Dems are for it. The reality is the exact opposite.

Dems want to spend as much as possible on social programs. GOP wants to spend as little as possible in total. The result presents Dems with a limited resources situation where the choice is between spending more on educating people about how they can get more food stamps and spending money on a mars rover. This is an easy choice for them. Was anyone really of the opinion that the Democrats as a party care at all about NASA? What part of their political methodology makes people think that they put long term anything against short term something? They use words like "investment", but always mean "direct spending for a direct benefit today" when they say it. This is no different. There's no direct benefit from space exploration. It wont feed a single voter, or send their kids to school, or buy them a bus pass. The fact that it may be (is IMO) absolutely critical for the long term prospects (and even survival) of our species just doesn't matter next to those other things.

Democrats just don't tend to think long term. And space exploration is about as long term as it gets.

It's entirely appropriate to call Bush's space goals fluff given that no progress was made towards them during his term.

I mean, "shame on you, Obama for not promising Bush's moon base! You obviously don't love space as much as Republicans if you're not willing to just make up some fantasy goals after watching Lost In Space marathons!"

Uh huh. I'm sure it's easy to type. The difference when I do it is that I have the credibility for it to have meaning beyond comedy. Understand? Me = gravitas like a motherfucker. You = Birther lightweight punchline.

____________________________

Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

I had never really attributed the downsizing of the space program to the republicans. Neither party has really championed space exploration in the last couple decades.

Except for Bush, who actively championed it and pushed to make more missions involving Mars a priority in our space program. And McCain, who actually included working towards a manned mission to Mars in his campaign. Call it fluff or empty promises if you want, but what has Obama promised much less delivered in this area?

The Democrats have been many times worse in terms of NASA funding that the Republicans. I can only assume the need for liberals who otherwise like the space program to continually suggest that both parties are equally to blame for NASA cuts is because they don't want to acknowledge that their own party is really the biggest culprit. The GOP starts with a small government mentality. They often make a point of making an exception with regard to spending on space. It's usually the Democrats who target NASA for cuts whenever there are budget negotiations on the table. The GOP is often forced to accept cuts to NASA in order to get any cuts at all. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the GOP is somehow anti space exploration and the Dems are for it. The reality is the exact opposite.

Dems want to spend as much as possible on social programs. GOP wants to spend as little as possible in total. The result presents Dems with a limited resources situation where the choice is between spending more on educating people about how they can get more food stamps and spending money on a mars rover. This is an easy choice for them. Was anyone really of the opinion that the Democrats as a party care at all about NASA? What part of their political methodology makes people think that they put long term anything against short term something? They use words like "investment", but always mean "direct spending for a direct benefit today" when they say it. This is no different. There's no direct benefit from space exploration. It wont feed a single voter, or send their kids to school, or buy them a bus pass. The fact that it may be (is IMO) absolutely critical for the long term prospects (and even survival) of our species just doesn't matter next to those other things.

Democrats just don't tend to think long term. And space exploration is about as long term as it gets.

Except for Bush, who actively championed it and pushed to make more missions involving Mars a priority in our space program. And McCain, who actually included working towards a manned mission to Mars in his campaign. Call it fluff or empty promises if you want, but what has Obama promised much less delivered in this area?

#34Palpitus1,
Posted:Oct 21 2012 at 6:32 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Remarking on scale, I have to mention Phil Plait's blog. Here he shows that the Sun is 400,000 as luminescent as the full moon. And in another follow up post I can't find he shows that the faintest star discovered has a luminosity approximately Avogadro's Number less as compared to the brightest feature (our sun).

Remarking on scale, I have to mention Phil Plait's blog. Here he shows that the Sun is 400,000 as luminescent as the full moon. And in another follow up post I can't find he shows that the faintest star discovered has a luminosity approximately Avogadro's Number less as compared to the brightest feature (our sun).

Remarking on scale, I have to mention Phil Plait's blog. Here he shows that the Sun is 400,000 as luminescent as the full moon. And in another follow up post I can't find he shows that the faintest star discovered has a luminosity approximately Avogadro's Number less as compared to the brightest feature (our sun).

I am not sure you know what that means. I will wait here and let you figure it out.

There's nothing actually wrong with that statement. Other than it just being used to say "Hey, it's really really really dim compared to our sun" and is actually meaningless in terms of the usage of Avogadro's number.

"The Rich are there to take all of the money & pay none of the taxes, the middle class is there to do all the work and pay all the taxes, and the poor are there to scare the crap out of the middle class." -George Carlin

Jesus Christ, you idiot. Avogadro's Number (obviously the number of discrete units in a mole, I learned this in high school) was used by me as a quirky, obviously not math-for-math description, but rather a high-power-to-the-tenth example of how greatly the luminosity difference is between the lowest lumens/candle-lights and the highest.

Quote:

Don't give me the answer?

The answer is that you are either an inorrigible pedant or an utter moron. Maybe both.

Boy princess it sure took you a long time to look up what that is. Also the insult you are trying to use is "incorrigible pedant" which, when you use it, is a bit on the ironic side. Better luck next time.